Do you write articles to help promote your business? 

What do you do with them once they are written?  Leave them safely saved on your PC hard-drive, never to be seen again?

Well, the great thing about writing articles is when the hard work of writing is actually done, the easy bit can begin – over and over again.  An article shouldn’t be used once and once only.  An article can be used time and time again, attracting new web visitors to your website 24/7.

Here are 7 ways that you can use one article and make sure you get it working harder for your business – so you don’t have to!

1. Email Newsletter:  Send it out to your subscribed database and share it via email
2. Article Submission Site:  Upload it on to one of the hundreds of article submission sites out there for free.  There are stacks to choose from covering both horizontal and vertical markets so do your research if you want to attract your target clients.  But to make it is easy for you, the Big Daddy of them all is www.EzineArticles.com.  If you want to keep things simple, submit just to this site and you won’t go far wrong.
3. Blog it:  If your article is around 300 words or more, split it down to make 3 or 4 blog postings.  And if you don;t have a blog, find someone who does blog in your marketplace and offer yourself as a contributor for a link back to your site in exchange.
4. Create an e-book:  Add another 9 or 10 articles to it and hey presto – you have an e-book.  Offer it as a free give-away or sell it and make some income.
5. Offer it to other businesses to use:  If you send out an email newsletter, you know the work needed to come up with fresh content can be tough at times.  So if you know other businesses in your field who send out an email newsletter, offer them your content for free if you are able to get a link back to your site.
6. Publish it:  Just like the email newsletter example above, think about the publications in your marketplace.  Which magazines or newspapers would love to get some free content [or may even pay you for it!]?
7. Make an e-course:  If you don’t want to do an e-book, why not add the other articles and create a 7 part e-course.   Again whether you use this a free give-away or a product to sell, decide which is best to help you achieve your business objectives.

How else can you use an article?  Share your ideas or thoughts below and submit a comment.

Have you found it hard to get back on to the blogging bandwagon?  Perhaps you haven’t started yet and it’s proving tough to get going.

If you have taken a break from your writing or you are starting from scratch, you may have found it hard to get going.  Your first blog post can feel daunting and, to be honest, a little intimidating.  What will your first message be to the world?  And who will be reading it?

You may have noticed that I have left my typepad blog behind.  After 3 years of blogging on Typepad [which I have to say is a great blogging platform and one that I would highly recommend - I just want every thing under one roof now which is why I have moved everything over to wordpress], my blog has been empty of postings for many weeks whilst I get going on my new one, here.

But I have to admit it’s been hard to get going again.  There is nothing worse than a blank sheet of paper or screen to dull your creativity!

So I thought I would share a few tips on how I have got going and hope they may be useful to you if you find yourself in this dilemma.

1.  Print off a calendar for the month and give each day a topic. For example, if you are a nutritionist you may want to have Monday as your detox day, Tuesday as your veggie focus, Wednesday as your portion control day and so on.  Giving each day a focus makes it easier to come up with article titles.

2.  Come up with article titles.  Once you have your daily topics, write down an article title in each of the days in your calendar.  You don’t have to write the article – just write down the title of the post

3. Set aside a couple of hours of writing and schedule the week ahead.  Once you start writing, keep going.  Make full use of the scheduling function in your blog and time your posts to come out over the coming days.

Once you get going, the writing becomes easier and easier.  That first one is always the hardest so start taping away on your keyboard now and watch the words flow out

Have you got any writing tips you can share?  Leave a comment as I know others would love to read your thoughts.

I was speaking at a networking lunch this week sharing some tips and ideas on how to use blogging in one’s business.  And the same old question came up “But doesn’t all that stuff take a lot your time?”

Let’s get this straight. All marketing takes time!

Driving to a networking lunch, spending 2 hours eating, talking and sharing business ideas, driving back from to your office, following up any contacts you met and sending them the info you promised – this all takes time!

Is it time well spent?  Well, hopefully yes especially if you met some interesting new contacts and some of those new contacts told others about you and your business.  Networking is an incredibly effective marketing tool.

So, why wouldn’t using tools like blogging, twitter, facebook and all the other social tools out there take time to use, too?

And if the time you spend on twitter, facebook and writing your blog is used effectively – it will be time well spent too!

PLUS! anything you do online has the added benefit of being there forever.  Blog posts, twitter links and facebook photos can be found today, tomorrow and forever more.  So, yes blogging and social media does take up your time but before you use a lack of time as an excuse not to use these tools in your business, ask yourself how effective your marketing time is at the moment?